


Lilac's TDP Drabbles

by lilacsilver



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Drabble Collection, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:47:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21548599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilacsilver/pseuds/lilacsilver
Summary: A place to keep all the Dragon Prince prompt fills I get on Tumblr (@lilac-writes-newsies if you want to send me prompts or requests!)
Relationships: Callum/Rayla (The Dragon Prince), Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Comments: 5
Kudos: 82





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Anonymous prompt: Rayllum coffee shop AU (11/24/19)

The Full Moon Café isn’t the easiest coffee shop to find, situated as it is down one side street and halfway up another, and so most people get their caffeine fix at shops on the main drag. Still, they get enough business from loyal customers to keep the lights on, and a little more now that foreign relations have begun to improve.

Rayla likes to sit at a table in the corner and occasionally pester Runaan (or Ethari, depending on the day) about giving her a job.

“When you’re sixteen,” Ethari always says.

“When you can make coffee without spilling grounds everywhere,” Runaan always says, right before asking, despairingly, how there are grounds _on top of the cabinets, Rayla, how did you even **do** that?_

Lately, though, her time has been spent observing the quiet boy who comes in every day with a stack of heavy old books nearly as tall as the table he seems to like best. His hair is dark and his eyes are serious, too old for someone so young. His order never changes: one moonberry muffin and a medium drink that’s more milk than coffee. He stays for hours, poring over his books until the sun is low in the sky and Ethari (or Runaan) pointedly reminds him of their business hours.

Rayla has never approached him until today. She knows – she _knows_ – that things are getting better, and the war is over, but he’s still a citizen of one of Xadia’s former enemies. Old habits, reinforced so strongly by dire reports on the nightly news, die hard.

But today is different. Today Runaan and Ethari are both absent – off celebrating their anniversary by not coming into work and instead doing things that her fifteen-year-old ears do _not_ need to hear about, thank you very much – and Lujanne is behind the counter cheerfully ignoring the fact that it’s nearly closing time.

Rayla raps on the boy’s table, making him jump.

“It’s almost seven,” she says. “Time to go.”

He wrinkles his nose at her. It’s not cute, _he’s_ not cute – except that it kind of is, and he kind of _is_ – and then he smiles and that just makes it _worse_. What are her uncles going to say when they find out that all some _boy_ from Katolis or Duren or wherever it is he’s from had to do was smile at her and she was gone? This must be what insanity feels like, she decides, fleeing onto the sidewalk before he can do something else horrible like introduce himself. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon request: Callum helping Rayla with her fear of water. (11/29/19)
> 
> A li'l post-canon drabble for y'all. Enjoy!

“Just dip your feet in, Rayla, come on!” Callum has already shucked his boots and rolled up his trouser legs, and is happily wiggling his toes like a child. Never mind that they’re both twenty-one now, thoroughly battle-tested and as married as they can be in the eyes of their respective homes.

(There aren’t really any laws on the books, and whatever customs existed before the split have been lost to human memory, but three monarchs out of six are glad to acknowledge the union anyway. Neolandia, Del Bar, and Evenere have thus far been silent on the subject, even as gifts have arrived from Duren and Xadia.)

“No, I’m good.”

“Come _ooooon_ ,” he repeats, widening his eyes pleadingly. With a sigh, she relents, sitting down to pull off her own boots. Callum gives a little cheer.

Actually putting her feet in the water takes a little longer, because she can’t tell if those are mere shadows or if there are hungry fish lurking just below the surface. But Callum’s with her, and he understands her better than almost anyone ever has, and she lets his encouragement carry her the rest of the way.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tehultimatefreakrobot on tumblr prompted: _Rayla faces discrimination in one of the human kingdoms and Callum just Asperio the assholes AWAY._ (12/14/2019)
> 
> Leave a comment if you liked it!

“ _Filthy elf!_ ”

Most of the crowd is jubilant as their young king makes his address of peace. Most of them don’t seem to mind that a Moonshadow elf stands at the King’s left, wary even as she looks upon him with no small measure of fondness. Most of them are glad to hear his words, and if there’s an elf at the very center of the peace, then that’s all right, isn’t it? If she’s standing out here, smiling and free – not clapped in irons, awaiting her fate in the dungeon – that must mean the war’s really over.

But only most of them.

“Who said that?” Prince Callum’s voice cuts across his brother’s speech, hard and angry. Until now he’s been silent, apparently content to watch his brother with pride. “How dare – Rayla’s a _hero_ , we couldn’t have done _any of this_ without her! _Who said that_?!”

The dissenter strolls forth, clearly unafraid of the consequences of upsetting a mage. (Whether that’s down to arrogance or mere foolishness is anybody’s guess). “I did, Your Highness.”

To a person, the crowd silently agrees to pretend that they didn’t witness a single second of what happens next. _Darnedest thing,_ they say later. _Certainly an odd turn of weather,_ others nod.

Of course, the discussion inside the castle afterward is quite a different thing.

“Prince Callum, you can’t just use magic every time someone says something about the Lady Rayla,” Opeli tells him.

“She’s right,” Rayla says. “Ye’d never get anything else done again.”

“That’s not what I – we have a lot of work to do to convince people that elves aren’t the enemy, and not everyone will welcome that.”

Rayla tells herself she doesn’t mind. The humans who know the truth – the humans who _matter_ – are here in this room. And they’re with her. That’s the important thing.

Still, though. She’s young enough to let it sting her, the idea that not everyone is willing to come around to her side.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A li'l post-canon drabble. (12/17/2019)

By elven reckoning, Rayla is one hundred and twenty-five years old. The humans she has lived with for so much of that time count the years differently: she and Callum once sat down to try to work it out, and in those days she was sixty-five by human reckoning.

But he’s gone now. It’s been a hard three years without him, and she suspects she’ll soon have to face life without Ezran as well. His daughter is wise and brave, and will be a good queen, but Rayla has already decided she won’t be in Katolis for the coronation when it comes. She wants to spend what is left of her life in Xadia, and be honored with the funeral customs of her own people.

Ezran knows this. They’ve said their goodbyes, and she plans to leave at first light, escorted by Soren’s oldest son. There will be no fanfare, no formal sendoff; she has no need of such things.

“Aunt Rayla?” It’s Sarai. The future queen looks very much like her grandmother and namesake, or so Rayla has always been told. “Dad said you were leaving in the morning, and I wanted to – to say goodbye.”

She’s always been close to Sarai. With no children of her own – it just wasn’t in the cards for her and Callum – she had doted on her niece and nephew instead.

“I am,” she says. “I can’t stay here anymore.”

This castle is not her home without Callum, and when Ezran is gone there will be no one left here who knew her in her youth.

“I know,” Sarai says. “It’s okay. I love you, Aunt Rayla.”

“I love you, too.”

Sarai helps her pack, though she’ll be taking precious little with her.


End file.
